It seems to me we're seeing an obvious manfestation of the classic "inside the Beltway" mentality. The vocal SAFE suporters are so closely aligned with the legislative process that they can't see the forest for the trees. I won't even speculate too much about the dynamics of why this is so, but it's been seen time and time again. Maybe it's that their vision becomes tunnel vision, sort of like the way a pilot focusses on his altimeter, tapping it and not quite believing it, as his plane crashes into the ground. Maybe this is the only world they know, the world of lobbying. Maybe they do truly believe it's "the best deal we can get." Well, I am not inside the Beltway, and I don't think much of _anything_ Washington does. I refused to renew my membership in the National Rifle Association when it became clear they were "playing the game," going along with repressive, gun-grabbing legislation because "this is the best deal we can get." The NRA lost a lot of members with this stance, and saw gun ownership rights eroded at every turn. The new leadership, elected after this fiasco, pledged that no longer would they "work with" repressive legislation. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, as with the Cypherpunks movement, vastly more radical steps are needed to sanction the gun grabbers like Swinestein and her leftist allies. (Hint: the more extremist organizations I now work with are probably one of the areas I'm apparently committing putative felonies in. We don't treat the gun laws as valid, and will defend our rights against any gun grabbers. That we use PGP means we could easily face the maximum CDT-approved sentence. As Marc Rotenberg reminded us, the CDT wrote: ""CDT strongly urges you to report H.R. 695, the SAFE Act, out of the Courts and Intellectual Property Subcommittee without amendment." Fuck Congress, and fuck CDT.) "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Now more than ever Cypherpunks need to take action. If SAFE becomes law, every single organization which supported it should be held accountable. That means PGP, Inc., if indeed PGP, Inc. supports this repressive legislation. Perhaps we should think about sending letters, summarizing the points we've been making here, to all of these organizations which signed the letter supporting SAFE. Perhaps many of the organizations spent little time thinking about the issues. Perhaps Roger Schlafly should speak to his mother (head of the Eagle Forum, as I recall) about the chilling effects of criminalizing crypto use when any of the tens of thousands of Big Brother-defined "prosecutable offenses" are allegedly committed. Perhaps we should ask Phil Zimmermann why PGP, Inc. supports this. Or perhaps he'll finally see the light when some of his anti-nuke friends are charged with using his own product, PGP, in connection with their "prosecutably offenses" at the Nevada Test Site! That would be ironic indeed. It's time we simply give up on Washington and its criminal actions. Washington is a cancer than can only be cured with a few megatons of nuclear disinfectant. --Tim May, still a felon, and soon to be even more of a felon if he uses crypto in support of his activities There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."